Eleven new firefighters are scheduled to start an eight-week training period when they join the Orland Fire Protection District this month as its first hires since 2007.
The fire district’s board of trustees in July authorized the hiring of 11 new firefighters in an attempt to lower the amount of overtime pay being shelled out by the district. Increasing the existing crew of 97 to 108 should decrease the need for firefighters to work overtime except to cover injuries and illnesses, said Fire Chief Ken Brucki.
Salary and benefits for the new hires will total about $1.1 million, he said. Comparatively , the excessive overtime hours are on pace to cost the district about $2 million for the year if no new firefighters were hired.
Some of new hires come from a pool of candidates that the board actually voted to hire in April 2011. The following month, however, when two new trustees took their seat on the board, officials voted to freeze the firefighter eligibility list, undoing the hiring decision.
Following the completion of a hiring study and the hiring of a new fire chief in the past year, trustees said now they are ready to commit to the extra 11 staff.
District Treasurer Chris Evoy said during a board of trustees meeting in late August that six of the new hires set to begin this month were part of the original pool who were nearly hired last year.
The six from the previous eligibility list were asked to undergo another background check and physical as part of the hiring process.
“We wanted to make sure they were still qualified,” Brucki said.
The rest of the new hires are part of a the district’s most recent eligibility list, officials said. The 11 new firefighters will do in-house training for about two months before being added to the district’s regular rotation, Brucki said.
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Also this month, the district plans to begin, in earnest, contract negotiations with the International Association of Firefighters Local 2754. The union’s contract expires at the end of the year.
“We’re all going in hoping we don’t have adversarial positions,” Evoy said. “Although, chances are we’re all going to be wanting different things.”
Also during the August meeting, officials approved a warranty renewal for the district’s 14 microwave radios, four of which have been damaged by lightning strikes since May.
Fire Station No. 3 was struck by lightning in May, June and July, and Station No. 4 was struck in August, Brucki said. Each time, the stations’ radio, phones and Internet went down.
The warranty on the radios had been allowed to expire, Brucki said, which means it cost about $20,000 each time the system was repaired. Urbancom, based in Oak Forest, agreed to renew a three-year warranty with the district and also include the cost of replacing the most recently damaged radio for $18,500.
“All our systems are back up now,” Brucki said. “We’re good until the next storm comes through.”
The district buildings have lightning arresters designed to protect electronic equipment during storms, but he doesn’t know why the damage keeps occurring.
“We’ve spent a lot of money grounding and trying to protect the stations,” he said. “We’re at a little bit of a loss.”
Urbancom will also help the district evaluate its systems to try and better protect against future damage, he said.